July 28th,

Finally I am adding some comments on this blog. When we put the pictures on last time it took four hours as the internet is slow when on the boat.

We are now in Tahiti. We arrived on the fourth of July to the downtown docks in Papeete from Toau in the Toamotus atolls. The Toamotus are just wonderful with reefs around these big lagoons. The colours of the water and corals cannot be explained adequately. We enjoyed the snorkelling through the passes with all the fishes and sharks. We spent a month in these atolls and could have spent years just gunk holing around. The people we met in the little villages were so nice and made us feel very welcome. There are 76 atolls there so you could never get tired of them.

We sailed the 200 plus miles down to Tahiti and since being here notice the cooler temperatures. At night now it goes down to 26 C and occasionally need a sheet on the bed. Papeete is a jumble of buildings and not that attractive. It does have a wonderful new park along the water front that we have enjoyed. July is the holiday and festive season here with lots of canoe races with up to 16 men in the boats. It is a great site to see twenty or so of these all out racing each other. They had these races most days we were downtown. It seems to be the number one pastime here to paddle an outrigger canoe. We went to the outdoor theatre which stages a celebration of the Tahitian life of old with all the dancing and singing. There were hundreds of dancers and could they move their bodies to the rhythms of the drums.

We had a few problems to fix up on the boat all electrical as two of our DC to DC converters had failed. This has caused us to have had one of our email systems down along with weather information and also to have our music offline. Now we have this fixed but it did take some time!!

We now are down at the bottom of the islands called Tahiti Iti with magnificent mountains and sharp knife edged peaks. Just like out of the movies and what you would think of at the mention of Tahiti. We have been going slow just relaxing with afternoon swims and evening drinks reading our books. Next week on August 02 we will haul Kilkea II out of the water and leave her for a month to return to Canada. We cannot wait to visit our new grandson Hudson who will be five months old. Also our daughter is having her first baby mid August in Calgary so we will be there for that event as well. We have been home for all our kids first babies!! Our plan now is to be back here in September and continue westwards to the Cook islands, Tonga, maybe Fiji, then down to New Zealand by the first of December. It will be busy as the distance is 2500 miles.

Sorry to be so late with this but maybe at home we can get a faster internet connection and get some more pictures on the blog.

lots of Bananas in the Marquesas

hiking in Daniels Bay Nuka Hiva

Marians birthday!!

ranchland and pine forests on top of Nuka Hiva

view of Taiohae Bay where our boat is anchored

amazing rock formations that are common here

Tiki there are lots of these all over the place

after a hike up the hill this is the view of Anaho Bay. We are achored down there

More rock formations

Copra shed

Flowers are everywhere, these are Bougainville

Tiki

The water is actually this colour in Tahuata island, Hane Moe Noa Bay

Pamplemousse (grapefruit) and bananas,

anchored in Fatu Hiva Hanavave Bay

Sunset after 16 days on the ocean

Down wind sailing to Fatu Hiva

Old man of the sea

out on the ocean mid pacific

Flying fish that we collect in the morning


July 11,

Finally some pictures as far as the Marquesas. We are now in Papeete Tahiti in French Polynesia of which there are many different island groups. I will try to upload some more pictures tomorrow along with a brief log of our travels.